Seminar on Photonics And Data

Communication
Topic: Terahertz Technology

Muhammad Awais
Supervisor : Jannis Bensmann
University of Muenster, WS 2021
12 Jan 2022

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Terahertz Technology
• Terahertz radiation are
electromagnetic radiation
• frequency range from roughly
0.1 THz to 10 THz
• wavelengths from 3 mm down to
30 μm
• Located between the upper end of the
microwave range and the far infrared
waves.

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 Terahertz Gap
• THz are less known.
• Due to THz nature there are not good
sources and detectors.
• Many materials don’t respond to
THz waves, this makes it difficult to
design devices that operate within this
domain.

www.allaboutcircuits.com/technical-articles/introduction-to-terahertz/

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Properties of Terahertz

• Penetration: They can penetrate in a wide variety of non conducting materials e.g. paper, clothes, plastics,
ceramics, clouds etc.

• Safety: Terahertz radiations are non ionizing and therefore considered to be safe for human beings
• Resolution: THz imaging has sub-mm resolution 
• Communication:  Enable for extreme high data rate communication

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 Generation of Terahertz Radiations
 Methods to Generate
Terahertz radiations
• Direct Methods
• Down Conversion
• Up conversion

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Generation of Terahertz Radiations

https://www.slideserve.com/colt-hewitt/coherent-imaging-and-sensing-using-the-self-mixing-effect-in-thz-quantum-cascade-lasers

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Backward-wave oscillator
• It works on Principle of velocity modulation to build
oscillations inside the vacuum tube.

• The electron gun is used to Generate electrons inside

the tube.  

• A slow-wave structure is present inside the tube that is

responsible for velocity modulation

• Opposite end consist of collector where forward waves

reflected back towards the cathode as an output.

https://electronicsdesk.com/backward-wave-oscillator.html

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Working of BWO
• When the cathode is heated then a high-velocity electron beam is emitted by the electron gun.
• Tube consists of a slow-wave structure that applies retardation to the moving electron beam
• Dc electric field applied between the grounded slow-wave structure and the negative electrode.
• The externally applied magnetic field allows bending of moving electron beam by 90⁰.
• An imperfectly matched collector on opposite end of gun generates reflections inside the tube.
• Because the slow-wave structure allows for velocity modulation, all electrons travel at different speeds.
• This causes electrons to cluster together inside it
• The backward wave is received at the RF output terminal

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Backward-wave oscillator
•Power: 1 mW to 50 mW
•Frequency Range: to 1.2 THz
•Bandwidth: 30 GHz to 200 GHz, dependent
Advantages
BWO provides wide range of tunability by the
variation in collector voltage
Disadvantages: BWO’s used:
•78 – 118 GHz (156 – 236 GHz with doubling).
It is less efficient in comparison to Travelling wave •220-380 GHz
tubes •450-750 GHz

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Quantum cascade laser
• QCL is semiconductor laser but its characteristics are different from
conventional Semiconductor laser.

• Frequency is adjusted through temperature and current

• Use electron transition between conduction band states in a series of

coupled quantum wells.

• Quantum wells are ultra thin.

• Quantum well is essentially a semiconductor with relatively low band

gap energy sandwich between semiconductor layers with high band
gap energy

• The thickness is few nm, and electrons are confined primarily to the
center part of sandwich

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 Quantum Cascade Laser (QCLs)
• Array of Quantum wells with gradually decreasing heights

• Active well and Injector region

• When charge is applied a beam will emit.

• Electrons are bound in a quantum well after tunneling through one

injector area.

• This restriction forces the electrons to obey wave mechanics with

Quantized vertical motion

• The electron loses energy and emits a photon

• It tunnels through the thin injector region to the next quantum

• where it is once again trapped and loses energy.

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Photomixing Technique
• Mixing two laser beams with different
frequencies forms an optical beat.
• which generates CW THz radiation at the beat
frequency.
• Photo mixing has been made using the device
fabricated on the low-temperature-grown GaAs
• laser source of which the emitting wavelength is
around 800 nm
• The band gap energy of such materials as Ge is
lower than the photon energy of the conduction
band

https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/23590440

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Apparatus setup for Photomixing

https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/23590440/oct-itst-university-of-california-santa-barbara

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Terahertz Detectors

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Hot Electron Bolometer Detector
• The bolometer is temperature sensitive, and incoherent
detector that only registers incident power, making it ideal
for CW detection.
• It has a positive or negative temperature coefficient based
on the change in resistance
• When EM radiations falls on substrate, Temperature of
Absorber rises which is connected to Heat sink.
• Due to heat rise resistance of thermometer changes
• which is detected by measuring the change of the electrical
Yun-Shik_Lee_Principles_of_Terahertz_Science_and_Book
signal across it, which can be calculated by
ΔT = P/G

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 Pyroelectric Detector
• A Pyroelectric detector is an infrared sensitive optoelectronic
component which are used for detecting electromagnetic
radiation.

• Pyroelectric crystal, also called a polar crystal.

• Incoming THz radiations are absorbed in upper layer due to this

temperature rises.

• The increase in temperature induces a reduction of the

• Schematic diagram of Pyroelectric Detector
spontaneous polarization and, simultaneously, the surface charge

• So, electrodes attached to the two opposite crystal surfaces form a capacitor

• If the circuit is closed, a current flows through it to compensate the change in the surface charge.

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 Pyroelectric Detectors
• Pyroelectric effect sensitive only to heat (not wavelength)
• In order to get high responsivity The load resistance R is usually very
large: 1010 - 1012 Ω.
• Observed as an electrical signal if electrodes are placed on opposite
faces of a thin slice of the material to form a capacitor.
• Creates a voltage across the capacitor for a high external impedance
• Only sensitive to AC signals (I.e. time-varying)
• Small detector area can give fast thermal response time.

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 Applications of Terahertz
Quality Control of Chocolate Products with THz Imaging
Front and back side of chocolate bar after preparation with a THz intensity image of a chocolate bar with different
glass splinter, a stone, and a metal screw. contaminating particles

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Terahertz Pulsed Imaging for Pharmaceutical
• Imaging of pharmaceutical dosage forms using terahertz
radiation is suitable
• Many medicines do not exhibit any distinct spectral features
• Possible to carry out non-destructive imaging at depth.
• The terahertz pulses that are incident on the tablet surface will
penetrate through the underlying coatings.
• At each coating interface or abrupt change in refractive index
between drug particles observed.
• This provides a contrast to differentiate between structural
layers or subsurface structures within the tablet
Clare J. Strachan et al., Using terahertz pulsed spectroscopy to study crystallinity of pharmaceutical materials, Chemical
Physics Letters 390, 20–24 (2004)

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Terahertz Pulsed Imaging for Pharmaceutical
• To generate a boundary map of
a tablet, terahertz waveforms
are calculated across the entire
surface of the tablet.
• Generating a 3D data cube.
• where x and y-axes represent
lateral dimensions while z-axis
represent time-delay or depth

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Atmospheric and Astronomical Spectroscopy

• Remote sensing applications in the THz region involve monitoring the Earth's atmosphere and observing
molecules in the interstellar medium.
• Many space programs had developed and build THz instruments. For example currently on going
programs are:
• Earth Observing System (EOS) Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) on NASA’s Aura satellite observes
thermal emission from the edge of the Earth’s atmosphere
• The data on chemical composition, temperature, and humidity of the atmosphere are used for monitoring
the stratospheric ozone layer, climate change, and global air quality.
(http://mls.jpl.nasa.gov/).

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Atmospheric and Astronomical Spectroscopy
Herschel Space Observatory (the fourth ‘cornerstone’ mission of the European Space
Agency’s Horizon 2000 program)

Main objectives of HSO are

1: To search for the earliest stage of proto-galaxies
2: To uncover the mechanism behind how stars and planetary systems
formed
3: Probe the chemical composition of the atmospheres and surfaces of
astronomical objects such as planets, satellites, comets, and asteroids.
The Herschel telescope is equipped with, arguably, the most advanced and
sensitive THz instruments presently available

Reference : Principles of Terahertz Science and Technology

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Submillimeter Astronomy
• Terahertz radiation provides a wide range of spectral lines
used in investigation of many phenomena such as the
formation of stars.
• It also contains spectrum traces of ions, atoms, and
molecules that are needed to comprehend the origin of
Solar System's.

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Submillimeter Astronomy
• Thz can detect cold matter at
approx. 140K or less such
that clouds of gases and dust
in our and near by galaxies
• New stars beginning to form
radiate heat as they contract
and are clearly seen in the • Image shows new star formation
THz range

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Telecommunication
• Wireless Communication
• high-speed wireless
communications for beyond 5G.
• With Respect to demand a lot of
research is going in this domain.

https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Wireless-Terahertz-System-Architectures-for-Beyond-Boulogeorgos-
Alexiou/337cc683376c33e35ab744c629ca20daa168d7de/figure/2

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 Reference
https://www.batop.de/information/PCA_infos.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terahertz_radiation

https://www.rp-photonics.com/terahertz_radiation.html

https://www.toptica.com/technology/technical-tutorials/terahertz/terahertz-sources/

https://www.jlab.org/news/releases/experiment-generates-thz-radiation-20000-times-brighter-anyone-else

https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/technical-articles/introduction-to-terahertz/

https://www.spiedigitallibrary.org/journals/optical-engineering/volume-58/issue-11/110901/Review-of-photomixing-continuous-wave-terahertz-systems-and-current-application/10.1117/1.OE.58.11.110901.full?SSO=1

Terahertz_Metrology_-_1_Terahertz_Time-Domain_Spectrometers_.pdf

Terahertz_Sensing_Technology_Electronic_Devices_an._-_T-Ray_Sensing_and_Imaging

wilke_THz_book_chapter

https://www.routledge.com/Terahertz-Astronomy/Walker/p/book/9781138894648

https://physicsworld.com/a/navigating-the-terahertz-gap/

Yun-Shik_Lee_Principles_of_Terahertz_Science_and_BookFi.org

Principles of Terahertz Science and Technology

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Thankyou for Your Attention !!

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